Thursday, December 30, 2010

It took me a year. This is a Christmas present for my dear stepson, David. A 2009 Christmas present. I got into so many projects that a few weren't finished in time last year. My New Year's resolution on 1/1/2010 was to stop procrastinating and finish some projects. I put that off until this year. So, my New Year's resolution for 2011 is to stop procrastinating last year's non-procrastination resolution.

I'm amazed and just a little envious of the number of knitting bloggers who seem to finish a new project every freaking day. I'm lucky if I finish (anything other than a bookmark which takes 2 hours) in less than a month. I guess it helps to not have a day job. I work (and I LOVE my job, so don't get me wrong), and have my iTunes habit to support, so time for knitting is not in plentiful supply. When I retire, I plan to do nothing but knit and blog and have wonderful yarns sent to me for free by people begging me to mention their product.

This scarf was a free pattern I found on the Lion Brand yarn site. I used Berroco Vintage in coriander. The yarn is a very soft wool/acrylic blend that is machine washable. I had to rewrite the pattern instructions so that I could follow them more easily. You can find the pattern instructions rewrite on Ravelry. If you knit and you're not on Ravelry, why aren't you?

At about the half way point (or 30 inches) of this scarf, it seemed to refuse to get any longer. In spite of that, I'll knit more scarves. It took Helge Johansen of Norway 23 years to knit the longest scarf on record (knitted by one person) at 11,363 ft. It took me a year to knit 5 feet, so...I won't be trying for the new record.

Off to dig out those other unfinished projects and make good on my New Year's resolution.

There's lots of love (and one or two swear words) knitted into that scarf for you, Dave. You must send me a picture of you wearing it.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

If you missed it, or live in a cave and didn't know about the total lunar eclipse that happened ridiculously early on the morning of December 21st, 2010, I have pictures! You won't get to see another one from North America until April 15, 2014.

Before Wayne and I went to bed that night, we got out the big tripod and my tiny Panasonic Lumix and set them up. I set the Lumix to it's 'night scenery' setting, because I can't be bothered to figure out the optimum manual settings. I also set out warm clothing to jump into when the alarm went off at 3:00AM. Then we went to bed and I did my usual before sleep reading (I was reading a really good book...Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart, which I hope is not a foretelling of the world of the next lunar eclipse in 2014). The book was so good, that I didn't put the it down until something like 1:30AM. Two minutes later, the alarm went off. Wayne, jumped right out of bed and got dressed while prodding me to do the same. I groaned, I mumbled, I said 'f@#$ it, I'm not getting up, you take the pictures and I'll look at it tomorrow'. I woke up enough to realize, this is a rare thing and I do want to see it in person.

In the backyard, the red moon, at about 3:15AM was totally eclipsed. We had to position the camera to shoot through the branches of a big oak tree, but had a clear view. These are not the best pictures, but I'm proud of them. My favorite is the first one, taken before I set the zoom to the maximum 10x my camera will take. You can see Orion's belt in the lower left.

The next few were taken over the course of about 5 minutes. The exposure for each is 8 seconds. If I'd thought to use the timer to take the shot, maybe they would have been even clearer. The aperture and focal length are different for each. Click on the individual pictures if you want to see the settings.

Saturday, December 11, 2010

I'm an atheist. I have a Christmas tree and lights on my house, or at least I will once I finish decorating the tree and can convince my dearest husband that it's not too cold to go out and put up the lights. It's Florida. It's not that cold, honey. You'd perish in New England. I love Christmas (except for all the TV ads and a lot of the sappy music). To those Christians who think their holiday has been hijacked, I say "pfffttt". No one is stopping you from celebrating in your own way. Try to be more tolerant of others. 'Tis the season.

I celebrate this holiday because I love hearing from family and friends this time of year. I love it because I love presents. I love getting them and I love giving them. I love getting paid time off from work. I love to bake and the way zucchini bread makes the house smell wonderful. Most of all, I love this song.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

The big orchid table is surrounded by blankets and sheets with a tarp on top. A heat lamp and rope lights are inside to keep them from freezing. Staghorn ferns look like big alien cocoons hanging from the oak tree.

The tomato plants have dozens of green tomatoes on them. They are wrapped in sheets thrown over an old step ladder. The gingers die back every year, so they aren't covered. They sprout again in the spring.

Now that the outside is ready for freezing temperatures, it's time to give Fred5 a new home. We went to Petco to see about a replacement motor for a 5 gallon Eclipse Hexagon tank I've had for a couple of years. This is the second Eclipse tank I've had and both motors took a crap. I'll never buy another one. Instead of a motor, which the store didn't carry, I bought a small (2.5 gal.) hex tank of the Petco brand. Fred5 seems very happy in his new home, and it has a nice LED light in the lid. It even has a blue nightlight in case he's afraid of the dark.

Friday, December 3, 2010

I've been catching up on reading some of my favorite knitting blogs. Anne Hanson's KnitSpot post featured photographs taken from a moving vehicle while on a trip through New York. I thought about my other favorite knitting blogs and realize that all of them feature photography, not just pictures of knitting, but really good photographs by people who also knit.

Anne's post made me think about how I also carry my camera everywhere. Shooting pictures from a moving vehicle is quite a bit easier with the automatic digital cameras available today. I don't recommend taking pictures while behind the wheel, with the car in gear and traveling down the interstate at 75 mph, but I admit to doing it. The following were taken while driving home from south Tampa to north Tampa on a stormy summer afternoon. They were taken with a Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3. Click on any of the pictures to go to my Picasa web album and see them larger.